


And the world will be better for this

by Ember_Keelty



Category: Man of La Mancha - Wasserman/Darion/Leigh
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 20:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3425276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ember_Keelty/pseuds/Ember_Keelty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The continuing adventures of Dulcinea and Sancho.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And the world will be better for this

**Author's Note:**

> Marcela and Ambrosio are characters from the Don Quixote novel, who appear in chapters twelve through fourteen. Some lines of dialogue from the funeral scene in this story are lifted directly from the book.
> 
> Marcela's song can be sung to the tune of "It's All the Same".

The first adventure of the lady knight Dulcinea and her squire Sancho was to rescue the famous steed Rocinante from being sold to the knacker. This they accomplished by cornering Alonso's niece before she could enact her foul scheme and arranging to purchase him from her. Though they could not spare any money, Dulcinea put forward as payment the promise that she would refrain from attending Alonso's funeral, and Sancho doubled that offer. Antonia told them to take the horse and ride him straight into Hell. Dulcinea wished her a long and stable marriage, and somehow made it sound like the stronger curse by far.

So Dulcinea took up her lord's place on Rocinante, and Sancho mounted Dapple, and together the two of them rode out in the direction of "anywhere but el Toboso". In truth, Dulcinea knew no more of horsemanship than don Quixote had of swordplay, but Sancho showed her the basics, and Rocinante was such a worn down old nag that it never crossed his mind to try running away with or unseating her. Had he really been the courageous and fiery steed of the don's dreams, she would have quickly found herself in trouble.

Before their sally, Dulcinea had cut her hair and dressed herself in men's clothes, which, she told Sancho, would do more to protect her on their travels than any suit of armor. For a weapon, she found a large branch fallen from a tree and fashioned it into a staff. She reasoned that if, to a knight errant, a dishrag could be a silken handkerchief and a shaving basin a golden helmet, then a makeshift staff could be a sword.

Dulcinea did not have don Quixote's genius for discovering adventure. She and Sancho travelled for days without encountering a single giant to be slain or enchanted armament to be reclaimed. When they stopped at inns, which neither of them mistook for castles, Sancho did not blow his bugle or introduce her as the lady knight Dulcinea. Instead, she called herself Alonso. She spoke very little and took great pains to disguise her voice when she did speak, and no one suspected her of being a woman.

Their second adventure came upon them quite suddenly, as they were riding through sheep country, running low on food and lower still on money. Sancho was in the middle of telling a very droll story about the trials of raising donkeys, when Dulcinea lifted her hand to silence him, for she heard singing in the distance up ahead:

 

Oh these men plague me with such slanders

I must now go to clear my name

Just hear them honk, this flock of ganders

"She is to blame! She is to blame!"

 

It was a girl's voice, sweet and clear as water from a mountain spring. As Dulcinea and Sancho rode on, the singer came into view on the road before them. She appeared to be a shepherdess, though she had with her no sheep. They could not see her face from their position, but if it was anywhere near as lovely as her voice, or as her long ringlets of chestnut-colored hair, it seemed to them that she must be an exceptional beauty. The two of them slowed their mounts to a trudge so that they could listen to her song without startling and disrupting her:

 

They say my cruelty slew that scholar

The latest man to wish me tame

From all around I hear them holler

"She is to blame! She is to blame!"

 

Why did he talk to me of love

Then tell the world that they should hate?

Have I not said time and again

I'll never love, it's not my fate

 

When I have died, Nature shall take me

I am her bride, she's made her claim

If some man should still mistake me

He is to blame! He is to blame!

 

Oh I never gave him hope

So how should he fall to despair?

I'm not the fool who tied the rope

I'm not the wretch who kicked the chair

 

I was born free and I'll die free

What further warning can I give?

I am me, I am Marcela

I will live how I choose to live

 

Oh these men plague me with such slanders

I'm not to blame! I'm not to blame!

 

"It seems to me, Sancho," said Dulcinea, "that to restore the honor of a slandered lady is a worthy undertaking for a knight errant."

"That it is, Mistress," said Sancho.

"How do I do it?"

Sancho rubbed his chin in thought for a moment before declaring, "I think what you must do is find the man who has impudented her honor—" by this he of course meant "impugned," but Dulcinea did not know the difference any better than he did, and so did not correct him "—and throw your glove at his feet, and say to him... say to him some pretty words about the sweetness of the lady you are championing, about her virtue and chastity and all that, and that you will prove it by beating him to a pulp. And then you beat him to a pulp."

"That sounds glorious!" said Dulcinea. "Only, I fear that it might embarrass her further. Still, I hate to see a woman traveling alone. Let's offer to accompany her, and then talk to her to find out in what other ways we might assist her."

They rode up alongside the shepherdess, who they immediately saw was as beautiful as they had expected. "Hail, fair lady," said Dulcinea, trying not to sound as awkward as she felt, and using her woman's voice so that the girl would not fear she was being assaulted. "May I have the pleasure of your acquaintance?"

"I am Marcela the shepherdess," said Marcela the shepherdess, looking at Dulcinea with some confusion. "Who are you?"

There was, for a moment, only silence, and then Dulcinea hissed, "Sancho, introduce me!"

"Oh!" said Sancho, and cleared his throat. "This is the lady knight Dulcinea del Toboso, righter of wrongs, enemy of evil, defender of maidens — and of young women who may not strictly be maidens, should it come to that — and dreamer of impossible dreams."

"A lady knight!" Marcela exclaimed, with only mild and pleasant surprise. "How original! I have been told that I am a rarity, but _you_ must be truly unique!" Dulcinea could tell that there was mockery in her words, but it was gentle mockery, and partly aimed at the speaker.

"If you are a shepherdess," said Dulcinea, "may I ask where your sheep have gotten off to?"

"I have left them in the care of my friends," said Marcela, "for I must travel swiftly today if I wish to make it to the funeral on time to say my piece."

"If you are in need of haste, you may ride behind me on Rocinante," said Dulcinea, although in truth the poor nag would barely move at a greater pace than a woman on foot if burdened with two riders, and anyhow Dulcinea could not stay seated on him at any faster gait than the gentlest of trots.

"No thank you," said Marcela. "But you may ride next to me if it pleases you. I think that you will wish to see this funeral, for it is the event of the season in our little village."

"Whose funeral is it?"

"Grisóstomo the scholar's," said Marcela. "Though he died not a scholar but a shepherd, albeit a very poor one, for he owned not a single sheep. He and his friend Ambrosio took to dressing as shepherds and wandering these fields after Grisóstomo saw me one day and, so he claimed, fell instantly in love. He professed this love to me by a stream surrounded by hills, at the foot of a great boulder and under the leaves of a cork tree, and asked that we be married at once. I said no, and after that he began to act toward me not as a lover, but as an enemy. They say that yesterday morning he died for love of me — but before he did, he wrote this poem, which he shared with all of his friends, and which one of them threw at me while shouting that I was a murderess." She produced from her pocket a piece of parchment, which she offered to both of the riders, though neither of them took it. "My apologies, are you not literate?"

"I'm literate," said Sancho proudly. "I can write my own name."

"I can write his name too," said Dulcinea, "for I watched carefully when he did it. But I cannot write 'Dulcinea,' so I'm afraid I am illiterate."

"I am not certain that even I could write 'Dulcinea,'" said Marcela, "for it is a very strange name that I have never heard before."

"I think that it may have one of these in it," said Dulcinea, tracing an 'S' in the air with one finger. "Dul _ccccc_ inea. And also one of these." She traced an 'n'. "Dulci _nnnnn_ ea. And I strongly suspect that, like 'Panza,' it ends in one of these." She traced an 'a'.

"That is all well-reasoned," said Marcela, smiling a bit at the other woman's inarticulate gesticulations. Sancho, meanwhile, stared at Dulcinea as though she were a sorceress illuminating the meaning of arcane runes.

"Anyhow," said Dulcinea, "the missive."

"Missive?" asked Marcela.

"Yes," said Dulcinea, "that is the word knights errant use for a paper with writing on it. What does Grisóstomo's say?"

"Oh, that," said Marcela disdainfully. "Forgive me, I do not wish to read the whole thing again, for it is long and hateful. But in it he calls me cruel and cold. He says that he will die of jealousy and despair, which is absurd in more ways than I can list — and yet, he did die, so I must attempt to list them in my defense."

"Then you are going to his funeral to make an answer to this missive," said Dulcinea.

"That I am," said Marcela. "I have been called cruel before, by other suitors I have rejected, and I always bore it with patience, for I knew that they spoke not from their rational minds, but from the woundedness of their tender hearts. But I will not stand to be called a murderess, no matter how deep the grief from which that foul word springs."

"Let me see if I understand this," said Dulcinea. "You are going to the funeral of a man who killed himself over you—"

"No one has said he killed himself," Marcela interrupted. "And I cannot repeat what has not been said."

"Fine. Then you are going to a funeral of man who, _they say_ , died for love of you, where all his friends will be gathered. These friends have called you a murderess and thrown things at you. Your own friends are elsewhere, tending to your sheep. By the direction we are headed, I guess that he is to be buried in the seclusion of the wilderness, and so that is where you will make your stand."

"Yes," said Marcela, "he has asked to be interred beneath the boulder where he proposed to me. The rest of what you say is also correct."

"I think," said Dulcinea with a heavy sigh, "that this could go very badly."

"Oh, I think not," said Marcela, "for it should not take much time or many words to convince any reasonable human being that I am in the right."

"You will not be speaking to reasonable human beings," said Dulcinea, "but rather to men."

Sancho opened his mouth as though he were about to say something, stopped, tilted his head contemplatively, then closed his mouth again and gave a thoughtful little nod.

Not long after this exchange, Marcela led them off the road and through a thicket of shrubs that crowned a line of hills. Upon emerging from the thicket, they found themselves perched upon a great boulder, looking down into a shallow valley where a stream ran through a grove of cork trees. At the foot of the boulder, two men wearing black woolen jackets and garlands of cypress and yew had begun to dig a grave. Behind them, four similarly-clothed men carried a litter upon which lay a corpse covered not by any shroud, but blanketed in wildflowers. Around twenty other men in garlands and black jackets were present, as well as upwards of fifty onlookers in more varied dress.

"Mistress," Sancho whispered to Dulcinea, "I have to say that I don't like these numbers if it should come to a fight."

"Don't worry, Sancho," said Dulcinea. "We have the high ground."

"That may be," said Sancho, "but they say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and anyhow, the big fish _will_ devour the small."

"The _literal_ high ground, Sancho. I mean that they must climb to reach us, and we can send the ones at the front toppling down backwards onto those below them."

"Oh, right, right." Sancho grinned. "Grind me up for sausages, but for a moment I forgot I wasn't talking to _him_."

"An honor," said Dulcinea somberly.

By this time, of course, the crowd below had noticed Marcela and her escort standing atop the boulder. Most of them did no more but whisper, but one of the black-jacketed men stepped forward and called out to her, "Have you come, you fierce basilisk of these mountains, to see if blood will start to flow from the wounds of this wretch slain by your cruelty? Or to trample this ill-fated body, like Tarquinius' ungrateful daughter? Say quickly what it is that you are here for, only know that you are speaking to an army of Grisóstomo's friends, who will not see him further abused."

"I do not doubt, Ambrosio, that Grisóstomo was well-loved," Marcela answered him, "but I think that most of your number down there did not know him in life, and came only to see the spectacle of a pagan burial."

"It is _not_ pagan!" Ambrosio insisted. The leaves of his garlands rustled as though he were shaking with rage.

"I call it only what I have heard it called," said Marcela, "and you must not think that I mean any disrespect by it, for I, too, wish to be buried in the wilderness. Only, they will not wear cypress and yew to my funeral, but rather violets and daffodils. And there will be dancing, and feasting, and drinking, for the day I am united with the Earth will be my wedding day."

"Well, Marcela," said Ambrosio, "you know how we all wish to see you wed."

"To answer your earlier question," Marcela continued, ignoring the insult, "I have come to defend myself and to make you all understand how unreasonable are those who, out of their grief, blame me for Grisóstomo's death. I wish to address their accusations point by point.

"First, I have been called cruel for not loving where I am loved — not just in this fatal instance, mark you, but many times before. If I returned the love of all the men who have loved me, I would not be virtuous."

"He meant to marry you, Marcela!" Ambrosio cried. "There is no loss of virtue in marriage!"

"He was not the first to come to me with such honest intentions," said Marcela. "Had I said yes to one who preceded him, and had Grisóstomo then laid eyes on me and fallen in love, would it have been cruel of me to abstain from adultery even though it meant his death?"

"But in truth you were _not_ married," said Ambrosio.

"What difference to the course of these events could it have made if I were? For I am told that my beauty ensnares the heart without regard to the mind's reason. And that is another thing: I understand that what is beautiful is worthy of love. What I don't understand is why a woman loved for her beauty is obliged to reciprocate this love. It could happen that the one who loves the beautiful woman is himself ugly. How absurd it would be to say, 'I love you because you're beautiful; now you must love me even though I'm ugly.'"

"Do you call _this_ ugly?" Ambrosio asked, gesturing at the body on the litter. "This Hyacinth? This Adonis?" Indeed, it was apparent even in death that Grisóstomo had been quite handsome in life, though Dulcinea noted that, as he was nearly twice Marcela's age, had he lived he would have grown old and wrinkled long before she did.

"Of course not," said Marcela. "But will you claim that, if he were, you would not call me cruel for the rejection that led to his death?" Ambrosio was silent, so she continued, "It must also be said that not every kind of beauty inspires love in every observer. And this is the heart of the matter, Ambrosio: I did not love him. Is there not also cruelty in dooming a man to the cold embrace of an unloving wife?"

"You might, in time, have learned to love him," said Ambrosio. "But you'll never know now, will you, you viper?"

"This _viper_ ," said Marcela, "Grisóstomo sought to take in his arms! This _basilisk_ , he implored to gaze upon him! Can you not see from that alone where the blame for his death truly lies?"

"So you _have_ come to insult the man you killed!" Ambrosio shot back at her.

"I have come to make plain it was his own folly that killed him! Look!" She held up the parchment with Grisóstomo's poem on it. "You have read this dirge of his, have you not? 'Ought I to shut my eyes to jealousy/If through a thousand heart wounds it appears?' And, 'Deadly is the force of jealousy.' And again, 'Oh, Jealousy! Put chains upon these hands!' I never loved him, nor in any other way consented to be his, and in fact I took great pains to disabuse him of the hope that I might ever do so. So what right had he to jealousy? And as I have never loved nor acquiesced to the pleas of any other man, he had no more reason than he had right. And this: 'Slain by suspicion, be it false or true...' If it is false, then who is to blame for it? And furthermore—"

"Enough!" shouted Ambrosio. "I will not stand here and listen to you tear apart his final verse! It would be less bestial to tear apart his dead flesh and feast upon it like a carrion bird!" With that he leapt upon the craggy face of the boulder and began to climb it, and several others followed his lead.

Without a word, Dulcinea and Sancho dismounted and stepped in front of the startled Marcela, Dulcinea with her staff at the ready, Sancho brandishing a frying pan he had pulled from Dapple's saddlebag.

"And who are they, then?" one of the litter bearers called out. "More suitors of yours, Marcela? _Señores_ , do you think after everything you have just heard that you can win her heart this way — or any way at all?"

"I am not a _señor_ ," said Dulcinea calmly. "I am the lady knight Dulcinea del Toboso, and this is my squire, Sancho Panza. I am not in love with Marcela, and even if I were she would be in no danger from me, for it is part of the quest of a knight errant 'to love pure and chaste from afar'. As for my squire, he is a married man, and I would not allow an adulterer to ride at my side. It is simply our duty to defend the innocent — and we will champion this lady's innocence, if need be. So try us. Just try us."

At these strange words, the crowd perceived that they were being addressed by a madwoman.

Ambrosio halted in his scramble up the cliff and, after taking a moment to collect himself, began to descend instead. "Leave them," he called out to those who were still climbing. "Grisóstomo's funeral is already being called pagan. Let it not also be called a farce."

"Let's go," Dulcinea said to Marcela. "I did tell you they would not hear reason." She and Sancho got back on their mounts, and Marcela followed them back to the road, glancing behind her in confusion as she went.

"Have you ever been in love?" the shepherdess asked Dulcinea as they travelled back to where her flock was being kept.

"A knight errant _must_ be in love," both Dulcinea and Sancho declared at once.

"I know the words, Sancho," said Dulcinea. "A knight without love is like a body without a soul. She is like a sky without stars."

"And how does it feel, to be in love?" Marcela asked.

"It feels," said Dulcinea, "as though I could run without ever stopping. As though I could fight and take many wounds without ever falling. As though I could reach out and touch the stars in the heavens."

"That is how I feel," said Marcela, "when I am in the company of the trees and the brooks of these fields — when I hear the birds sing, and see the wildflowers bloom after a rain, and watch the cotton-tailed rabbits playing in the dewy grass. I have always understood this as a kind of love, and I thank you for giving credence to my understanding. I cannot comprehend the love these men speak of, a poisonous love that inspires cruel words aimed at the beloved and brings death to the lover."

"It seems to me," said Dulcinea, "that love brings out nobility in a heart that is already noble, but sews rot and decay in a heart that is selfish."

"I do not think that can be the case," said Marcela, "for I am the most selfish of all living creatures. I seek nothing in life but my own happiness, and I cannot even bring myself to pity those who, in striving to steal that happiness away from me, have fallen into misery and death. Rather, I think that there must be different kinds of love. Perhaps men feel one kind, and women another."

"That also cannot be," said Dulcinea, "for I learned my way of loving from a man."

"Then I suppose it must remain a mystery for now," said Marcela.

They traveled on, and in the early evening met up with Marcela's fellow shepherdesses as they were making camp. Marcela invited Dulcinea and Sancho to share their food and, when Dulcinea tried to thank her, said that it was the least she could offer as payment for protecting her earlier.

"It's called 'the boon of hospitality,'" Sancho sagely informed his mistress. "And to think I didn't even need to blow my bugle."

The shepherdesses were not quite sure what to make of Dulcinea. Wherever don Quixote had gone, the people had seen in an instant that he was mad, not just from the nonsense he spoke, or the full set of armor he wore, or the strange and dangerous actions he took, but also from his eyes, which seemed always as though they were seeing into some other, grander world. Though Dulcinea said things only a madwoman would say, and dressed as only a madwoman would dress, and behaved as recklessly as only a madwoman would dare to behave, still her eyes were keen and focused and seemed to appraise the world around her with a jeweler's attention to detail, as well as with his ruthlessness toward flaws. In short, she was almost exactly like a poet, except in that she could not write.

Still, the shepherdesses welcomed her company, for they had always suspected that Marcela might be a little mad herself, and all of them adored her — some of them quite as much as the men in the village adored her, although, not being men, they had more respect for her wishes than to proclaim so. From them, Dulcinea learned Marcela's story. She was not born a shepherdess, but rather the daughter of a man who, though a peasant, was so very wealthy he was known as Guillermo the Rich. Her mother died in childbirth, and her father soon after of a broken heart, leaving Marcela, a mere infant, with his entire estate. She was raised in the house of her uncle, a priest, and there she might have stayed her whole life, living as comfortably as a princess with her great fortune. Instead, the moment she came of age, she purchased a flock of sheep and took up a life of toil beneath the hot sun and cold stars.

Dulcinea and Sancho ate their fill of bread and cheese, and got a good taste of mutton besides, while Rocinante and Dapple grazed alongside the sheep. It was a very pleasant evening, right up until the torches appeared in the distance.

"What is that?" Dulcinea asked, rising to her feet.

"Oh, travelers of some description or other," said Marcela. "They will not bother us."

But as the lights drew closer, Dulcinea saw that they were held by a company of some dozen men with none other than Ambrosio as their leader.

"Come, Sancho," she said. "We will ride out to meet them. Marcela, you are in danger. You must stay here with your friends."

"What danger?" asked Marcela, but Dulcinea and Sancho were already collecting their mounts from the pasture.

The knight and her squire rode at a trot to where the torch-bearers were advancing, and blocked the road ahead of them. "What are you here for?" Dulcinea demanded.

"Not for you," said Ambrosio simply, and made to move around her.

"I think I may be able to change your mind about that," said Dulcinea, and threw her glove at his feet.

Ambrosio stomped on it and ground it into the dirt. "I have no time for your antics, woman!"

"Ambrosio, I challenge you to one-on-one combat," Dulcinea continued undeterred. "If I am defeated, you may do to me whatever it is you plan to do to Marcela."

"Mistress!" Sancho started in alarm, but Dulcinea lifted her hand to silence him.

"I think you will find," she said to Ambrosio, "that I have quickly become a good friend of Marcela's. Avenge yourself on her by showing her the pain of watching a friend come to harm."

As though to strengthen her argument, Marcela came running down the path behind her, pursued by her friends the shepherdesses attempting to hold her back. "Dulcinea!" she called. "Dulcinea, you must not fight them, there are too many! They have come for me, so let me speak to them! I will make them see reason!"

"I do not think they are here to listen to you speak, Marcela!" one of the shepherdesses called out. Indeed, when they saw her, the group of men surged forward shouting many vile insults. The shepherdesses grabbed Marcela and pulled her, struggling, into their ranks, circling around her to protect her. Sancho got out his frying pan and made a valiant attempt at beating back the onslaught from his seat on Dapple's back, while Dulcinea dismounted and seized the wrist of Ambrosio, who had come the closest to reaching the shepherdesses.

"My way has this advantage too," she said, "that you will not risk drawing the ire of Marcela's uncle the priest. You may be pleased to know that I have no relatives of any wealth or influence whatsoever."

"I never thought you did," said Ambrosio, yanking his arm free and turning to her. "But do you take me for a coward?"

"I would not bother challenging a man I took for a coward to duel," said Dulcinea. "For a coward would not accept such a challenge." Ambrosio turned back toward the huddled shepherdesses, and Dulcinea grabbed him again. "Look at them, Ambrosio! You shall have to beat and batter your way through all of them if you wish to reach her! If you believe your cause righteous, is that any way to pursue it? I say Marcela is innocent. You say she is a murderess. Prove your claim upon my flesh, and leave her weeping as you have wept."

"Fine!" Ambrosio bellowed. "I have been a scholar, and I have been a shepherd! Why not now be a knight? It seems to me as though the whole world has gone mad, and now a madwoman speaks to me of reason! What else is to be done but to join in the general lunacy?"

"Then you must swear," said Dulcinea, "on Grisóstomo's grave, and on your own good name as a Christian, that if you are defeated you will never again attempt to harm Marcela or anyone dear to her in any way!"

"I swear on Grisóstomo's grave," said Ambrosio, "and as I am a Christian, I will abide by your terms."

"Make your friends swear too."

Ambrosio gestured at the crowd behind him, and was met with a chorus of "I swear!"s.

"Do you have anything you might use as a staff?" Dulcinea asked. "Or must we fight with our hands?"

"Here, Ambrosio!" one of the men called, and lifted up a heavy walking stick, which Ambrosio went to take from him.

"Sancho!" Dulcinea held out her arm, and Sancho brought her staff.

"Don't lose," he begged of her.

"My friend," she said to him warmly, clapping his shoulder, "it doesn't matter whether I win or lose. Don't you see? This is the quest!"

"I never cared about any quest," said Sancho, looking close to tears. "I told you, didn't I? I _liked_ him. And I like you too, so don't you dare go and leave me like he did."

"Have I ever told you Sancho," she asked, "that the single best moment of my life was when we stood in the courtyard of the inn at el Toboso, surrounded by all those unconscious bastards we had beaten into the dirt? If it weren't for that moment, I would not value my life at the price of a cabbage. Now that I have tasted glory, I intend to live long enough to taste it again. So don't fear for me."

Sancho nodded dumbly and stepped away as Ambrosio returned, weapon in hand. "Shall we begin, lady knight?" he asked.

Dulcinea closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Protect me, don Quixote," she whispered, then opened her eyes again and charged.

It must be said up front of the battle that ensued that neither combatant truly knew how to wield a staff. Dulcinea was accustomed to flailing about wildly with any heavy object that came to her hand, and that was exactly what she did here. Ambrosio, who was not accustomed to anything that even resembled real fighting, was at first overwhelmed by her fervor, and dazedly attempted as best he could to block or dodge her strikes, without a thought spared for counterattacking.

When his wits returned to him, though, he quickly remembered the advantage he had in terms of raw strength. The wayward blows that landed on his arms and legs — for, with some effort, he did manage to protect his chest and head — did not hurt very much, and the blows he blocked with his own staff did nothing to unbalance him or force him back. This in mind, he took a step forward, lifting his staff to catch Dulcinea's before she could bring it all the way down. With his opponent surprised and off-balance, he gave one little shove and sent her stumbling backwards. In the seconds it cost her to regain her footing, Ambrosio took one swing, as hard as he could, right at her ribs.

It connected with a resounding _crack!_

Some of the shepherdesses screamed. Dulcinea collapsed to her knees, leaning heavily upon her staff to keep from falling on her face. She gasped for breath, and with each gasp shuddered visibly in pain.

Ambrosio towered over her. "You are nothing to me," he said calmly. "Release me from the terms of our duel, and let what happens next happen to Marcela."

"'To try,'" Dulcinea panted, "'when your arms are too weary.'"

"What does that mean?" Ambrosio asked.

Dulcinea spat on his shoes.

"Well, I know the meaning of that." Ambrosio lifted his staff above his head to bring down upon hers.

He was open from face to toe. Dulcinea shifted her weight back onto her shins and swung her own staff up right between his legs.

With a wretched moan, Ambrosio went down hard. His weapon dropped from his hands, and he curled up on the ground with his arms crossed over his groin, as though trying to protect the part of him that had already been hit.

As he fell, Dulcinea shakily rose. "You are defeated!" she shouted, and rained down blow after blow upon his arms, his legs, his stomach, his chest. "Say you are defeated before I smash your worthless head!"

"I am defeated" Ambrosio cried out, and some of his friends even joined in shouting, "He is defeated! Stop! Stop!"

Dulcinea did stop, and took a deep, shuddering breath. "You poor fool," she said, casting her staff to the ground. "You have no idea how much pain this body has learned to withstand." Then she began to sway on her feet, and Sancho had to run forward to catch her before she fell.

Ambrosio's friends also came forward to collect him and carry him home. Before they had made it out of sight, he was sagging unconscious in their arms.

"That was horrible," said one of the shepherdesses, and quietly began to cry.

"That was glorious!" said Dulcinea, smiling with all the radiance of the moon above their heads.

"That it was, Mistress," Sancho agreed. "Now let's get you fixed up."

"Long live knight errantry!" Dulcinea shouted.

"Long live knight errantry," Sancho answered with much more reserve.

"Long live don Quixote!"

"Long live don Quixote." And suddenly Sancho was crying too.

"I told you he wasn't dead, my friend," Dulcinea said more tenderly. Then she fainted, and had to be carried by him and the shepherdesses to a place where she could be laid down.

In the end, she was infirm for four weeks, laid up in the house of the priest who had raised Marcela. This suited Dulcinea just fine, for it gave her an excuse to stay close to the shepherdesses long enough to see if Ambrosio and his friends would be bound by their oaths. Indeed they seemed to be, or else time and reflection made them think better of their murderous intent, for they did not come again for Marcela.

In the village, people still spoke of Marcela's cruelty and of her deadly disdain. The engraving on Grisóstomo's tombstone, besides claiming the thirty-year-old noble scholar without a sheep to his name had been "a shepherd lad," declared that he had fallen "victim" to someone "ungrateful, cruel, coy, and fair."

"'Coy' is a new one," Marcela said with a sigh when she heard of it. "But what's to be done?"

Because she could not do much more than lie on her back, Dulcinea passed the time by having Marcela teach her to write. They started with her name, which unfortunately Marcela spelled "Dulsinea," divesting it of its sweetness. "Alonso" was next, so that Dulcinea could sign with her alias, and then "don Kijote," which no one living would ever have reason to guess was misspelled. Dulcinea practiced writing these names, picking them apart sound by sound and letter by letter, and one day when Marcela came to see her, Dulcinea had something very peculiar to show her.

"It is a bad story written badly," said Dulcinea as she handed the paper to Marcela. "But it is my own invention, and I wanted to see whether I could do it at all."

That it was written badly, there was no denying. Nearly every word was crudely misspelled, and in some places there were only meaningless scribbles where Dulcinea knew there ought to be a letter but could make no guess as to what it might be. Still, many of the words could be sounded out with enough patience, and most of the others could be guessed by context. The story went like this:

"Once upon a time there was a noble young lady being kept captive in a castle in el Toboso, where she was made to work as a kitchen maid. One day there appeared a knight in shining armor, who defeated her captors in glorious combat and rescued her from her servitude. But on the road from the castle, they were attacked by an evil enchanter, who defeated the knight and abducted him. Perhaps the proper thing for a lady to do would be to wait patiently for her knight to return to her. However, she was so impressed by him that she decided to become a knight errant herself, and scour the world until she found him."

"I hope your lady finds her knight," said Marcela kindly.

"She will someday," said Dulcinea, "but only at the very end of all her adventures. So I hope it is not any day soon."

Then Marcela wrote the story out with proper spelling and punctuation and gave it to Dulcinea for her to study side by side with her own version.

When Dulcinea was healed, Marcela sent her and Sancho on their way with a purse full of coins and a bag full of mutton. It was a greater treasure than either of them had ever really expected to come away with from an adventure.

"I think, Sancho," said Dulcinea as they rode out, "that the game must be rigged."

"What game is that, Mistress?" Sancho asked.

"Life," said Dulcinea. "If a woman is base, then she is not a woman but a whore, and men may beat her, rape her, kill her — all in good conscience. This I have always known. Only now do I see that if a woman is virtuous, she is cruel and arrogant, and it is well within the rights of any good man to violently put her in her place."

"It seems to me," said Sancho, "that the only thing for it is to get married as soon as possible and hope your husband will protect you."

"Ah, yes, like our dear Antonia, taking shelter in the bed of her uncle's murderer." Dulcinea spat on the ground. "I wonder who will protect her from _him_?"

"If their marriage is anything like mine," said Sancho, "it's him who'll need protecting."

"You shall never go back to your wife," Dulcinea told him. "If there is a man alive today who does not deserve to be beaten, it can only be you, my friend."

"Oh, I expect I'll be beaten plenty in the future," said Sancho. "And I expect I'll deserve it for following you."

"That's true," said Dulcinea. "I'm sure we will both be beaten. It is not entirely impossible that we will be killed. But you know, Sancho, I think I am beginning to see with my own eyes."

"What do you see, Mistress?"

"An unbeatable foe. An unrightable wrong. When you set Aldonza beside Marcela, two women as different as can be, and yet equally despised, it becomes all too clear what reality is, and what it ought to be. So ride with me, Sancho. I have just had a glimpse of my own impossible dream."


End file.
